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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 613 records · Page 34
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Unexpected Observation of Disorder and Multiple Phase-Transition Pathways in Shock-Compressed Zr

The response of materials under dynamic compression involves a complex interplay of various deformation mechanisms aimed at relieving shear stresses, yielding a remarkable diversity in material behavior. Here, in this Letter, we utilize femtosecond x-ray diffraction coupled with nanosecond laser compression to reveal an intricate competition between multiple shear-relieving mechanisms within an elemental metal. Our observations in shocked-compressed single-crystal Zr indicate a disorder-mediated shear relaxation at lower pressures. Above the phase-transition pressure, we observe the increasing contribution of structural phase transition in relieving shear stress. We detect not one but three concurrent pathways during the transition from the hcp to a hex-3 structure. These complex dynamics are partially corroborated through multimillion-atom molecular dynamics simulations employing a machine-learned interatomic potential. Our observation of multiple concurrent pathways and disorder during shock compression underscore the far greater intricacies in the dynamic response of metals than previously assumed.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2024

Observation of New Charmonium or Charmoniumlike States in B + → D * ± D ∓ K + Decays

A study of resonant structures in B + → D * + D − K + and B + → D * − D + K + decays is performed, using proton-proton collision data at center-of-mass energies of s = 7 , 8, and 13 TeV recorded by the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9 fb − 1 . A simultaneous amplitude fit is performed to the two channels with contributions from resonances decaying to D * − D + and D * + D − states linked by C parity. This procedure allows the C parities of resonances in the D * ± D ∓ mass spectra to be determined. Four charmonium or charmoniumlike states are observed decaying into D * ± D ∓ : η c ( 3945 ) , h c ( 4000 ) , χ c 1 ( 4010 ) , and h c ( 4300 ) , with quantum numbers J P C equal to 0 − + , 1 + − , 1 + + , and 1 + − , respectively. At least three of these states have not been observed previously. In addition, the existence of the T c ¯ s ¯ 0 * ( 2870 ) 0 and T c ¯ s ¯ 1 * ( 2900 ) 0 resonances in the D − K + mass spectrum, already observed in the B + → D + D − K + decay, is confirmed in a different production channel. © 2024 CERN, for the LHCb Collaboration 2024 CERN

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Observation of $t\bar{t}$ Production in Pb+Pb Collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV with the ATLAS Detector

Top-quark pair production is observed in lead–lead (Pb+Pb) collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider with the ATLAS detector. The data sample was recorded in 2015 and 2018, amounting to an integrated luminosity of 1.9 nb −1 . Events with exactly one electron and one muon and at least two jets are selected. Top-quark pair production is measured with an observed (expected) significance of 5.0 (4.1) standard deviations. The measured top-quark pair production cross section is 𝜎 𝑡⁢$\tilde{i}$ = 3.6⁢$^{+1.0}_{−0.9}$⁢(stat)⁢ $^{+0.8}_{−0.5}$⁢(syst) μ⁢b, with a total relative uncertainty of 31%, and is consistent with theoretical predictions using a range of different nuclear parton distribution functions. The observation of this process consolidates the evidence of the existence of all quark flavors in the preequilibrium stage of the quark-gluon plasma at very high energy densities, similar to the conditions present in the early Universe.

Quark-gluon plasma↗
DOE OSTI2026

Impact of QCD energy evolution on observables in heavy-ion collisions

Here, we study how the inclusion of energy dependence as dictated by quantum chromodynamic (QCD) small-x evolution equations affects key observables in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Specifically, we incorporate JIMWLK evolution into the IP-Glasma framework, which serves as the initial condition for a simulation pipeline that includes viscous relativistic hydrodynamics and a hadronic afterburner. This approach enables a consistent modeling of highly energetic nuclei across varying Bjorken-x values, which are relevant for different collision energies and rapidity regions. In comparison to the standard IP-Glasma setup without small-x evolution, we observe pronounced changes in particle multiplicities and spectral distributions, especially in smaller systems and at the highest available energies. We further explore effects on anisotropic flow observables and correlations between mean transverse momentum and elliptic flow. Our findings underscore the critical role of nonlinear QCD evolution in accurately modeling the early stages of heavy-ion collisions, as well as its implications for extracting transport properties of the quark-gluon plasma.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Observation of the Ω⁡(2012) baryon at the LHC

A signal consistent with the Ω⁡(2012) baryon has been observed with a significance of 15⁢𝜎 in pp collisions at $\sqrt{𝑠}$ = 13 TeV at the LHC. In this paper, the analysis technique is described and measurements of the mass and width of the Ω⁡(2012) are reported, along with the first measurement of its transverse-momentum spectrum and yield. This paper corroborates the observation by the Belle Collaboration of this excited Ω state and the observation that the Ω⁡(2012) has a rather narrow width for a strongly decaying resonance. The yield measurement is combined with a statistical thermal model calculation of strange baryon yield ratios to obtain estimates of the Ω⁢(2012) − → $Ξ⁢\bar{\textrm{K}}$ branching ratios. These results will improve our understanding of the internal structure and mass spectrum of excited baryon states and serve as a baseline for searches regarding modifications of these properties in high-temperature media.

Acharya, S. [INFN] (ORCID:0000000292135329)↗
DOE OSTI2022

Observations of phase changes in monoolein during high viscous injection

Serial crystallography of membrane proteins often employs high-viscosity injectors (HVIs) to deliver micrometre-sized crystals to the X-ray beam. Typically, the carrier medium is a lipidic cubic phase (LCP) media, which can also be used to nucleate and grow the crystals. However, despite the fact that the LCP is widely used with HVIs, the potential impact of the injection process on the LCP structure has not been reported and hence is not yet well understood. The self-assembled structure of the LCP can be affected by pressure, dehydration and temperature changes, all of which occur during continuous flow injection. These changes to the LCP structure may in turn impact the results of X-ray diffraction measurements from membrane protein crystals. To investigate the influence of HVIs on the structure of the LCP we conducted a study of the phase changes in monoolein/water and monoolein/buffer mixtures during continuous flow injection, at both atmospheric pressure and under vacuum. The reservoir pressure in the HVI was tracked to determine if there is any correlation with the phase behaviour of the LCP. The results indicated that, even though the reservoir pressure underwent (at times) significant variation, this did not appear to correlate with observed phase changes in the sample stream or correspond to shifts in the LCP lattice parameter. During vacuum injection, there was a three-way coexistence of the gyroid cubic phase, diamond cubic phase and lamellar phase. During injection at atmospheric pressure, the coexistence of a cubic phase and lamellar phase in the monoolein/water mixtures was also observed. The degree to which the lamellar phase is formed was found to be strongly dependent on the co-flowing gas conditions used to stabilize the LCP stream. A combination of laboratory-based optical polarization microscopy and simulation studies was used to investigate these observations.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Reducing Conservativeness of Polytopic Linear-Parameter-Varying Robust Vehicle Sideslip Angle Observer Through Minimum-Area Convex Quadrilateral Design

The polytopic linear-parameter-varying (LPV) method has become increasingly popular for designing intelligent control and estimation systems for ground vehicles, particularly for the vehicle sideslip angle observer. In vehicle lateral dynamics, the vehicle longitudinal velocity-induced nonlinearities are conventionally outer-approximated with polytopes such as rectangles or triangles to obtain a polytopic LPV system. Yet, such polytopic approximations tend to be conservative and may lead to inadequate observer performance. To address this issue, a minimum-area convex quadrilateral construction is proposed in this paper to reduce design conservatism. The suggested design is demonstrated through the synthesis of an LPV H ∞ robust vehicle sideslip angle observer. Furthermore, a dSPACE-ASM simulation study is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and the advantage of the proposed polytopic construction over a baseline approach.

Zhou, Xingyu↗
DOE OSTI2024

Artificial Neural Network-based State Estimation for Low Observable, Unbalanced Microgrids for Microgrid Building Blocks

The microgrid building blocks (MBB) were proposed as microgrid components with combined sub-components with power conversion, communication, and microgrid control capability, or a subset of such sub-components. This work addresses the microgrid controller, present in an MBB, which requires accurate state estimation to perform its tasks, including for monitoring, power flow (dispatch), fault detection, etc. In this paper, an artificial neural network (ANN)-based framework for state estimation is proposed for an MBB, especially for unbalanced and low observable microgrids. To overcome the challenge of low observability in unbalanced systems, a concept of extended adjacent matrix is introduced to reduce the required number of measurements for state estimation. Addressing the challenges, a feed forward neural network (FNN) is utilized to enhance estimation accuracy and reliability with the reduced number of measurements. The proposed state estimation is validated through extensive simulations on a microgrid, which was achieved from the modified IEEE 34-bus distribution test feeder with multiple distributed energy resources (DERs) and demonstrated superior performance in estimation accuracy and low observability.

Choi, Jongchan↗
DOE OSTI2020

Learning to Count Grave Sites for Cemetery Observation Models With Satellite Imagery

Understanding how people occupy open spaces is important for research in support of population modeling, policy, national security, emergency response, and sustainability. For the past decade, there has been an increase in research toward capturing and reporting population dynamics and patterns of life at the building level and in some open public spaces such as cemeteries and parks. This is done through observation models developed from local sociocultural information acquired at various spatiotemporal scales to inform night, day, and episodic population occupancy estimates (people/1000 sq ft). Sociocultural information for cemeteries and parks is scarcely available and often collected manually. The process is not only marred by inconsistencies but is laborious and time consuming. In this study, we leverage convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and satellite imagery to derive grave site counts as proxy variables to support scalable and accurate sociocultural data required in a population observation model. Through a hybrid workflow (weak localization plus regression model), we characterize a large scale automation process to counting of grave sites. We evaluate and demonstrate the efficacy of proposed workflow using out-of-data set large satellite imagery and establish its broader impact on cemetery observation models.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

PMU and Communication Infrastructure Restoration for Post-Attack Observability Recovery of Power Grids

This paper is concerned about recovering the observability of cyber-physical power grids after massive cyber attacks, which helps to achieve the cyber-physical resilience of the grids. For recovering the observability of the grid, the measurability of the Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) and the connectivity of the communication network are needed to be restored. The PMU and communication infrastructure restoration problem is jointly formulated as a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem to minimize the observability loss of the grid over time after a cyber attack while considering the constraint of limited resources. The efficacy of the proposed optimal restoration strategy is verified by comparing with heuristic methods on the IEEE 57-bus system.

cyber security↗
DOE OSTI2021

Detecting forest response to droughts with global observations of vegetation water content

Droughts in a warming climate have become more common and more extreme, making understanding forest responses to water stress increasingly pressing. Analysis of water stress in trees has long focused on water potential in xylem and leaves, which influences stomatal closure and water flow through the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. At the same time, changes of vegetation water content (VWC) are linked to a range of tree responses, including fluxes of water and carbon, mortality, flammability, and more. Unlike water potential, which requires demanding in situ measurements, VWC can be retrieved from remote sensing measurements, particularly at microwave frequencies using radar and radiometry. Here, we highlight key frontiers through which VWC has the potential to significantly increase our understanding of forest responses to water stress. To validate remote sensing observations of VWC at landscape scale and to better relate them to data assimilation model parameters, we introduce an ecosystem-scale analogue of the pressure-volume curve, the non-linear relationship between 44 average leaf or branch water potential and water content commonly used in plant hydraulics. The 45 sources of variability in these ecosystem-scale pressure-volume curves and their relationship to 46 forest response to water stress are discussed. We further show to what extent diel, seasonal, and 47 decadal dynamics of VWC reflect variations in different processes relating the tree response to 48 water stress. VWC can also be used for inferring belowground conditions – which are difficult to 49 impossible to observe directly. Lastly, we discuss how a dedicated geostationary spaceborne 50 observational system for VWC, when combined with existing datasets, can capture diel and 51 seasonal water dynamics to advance the science and applications of global forest vulnerability to 52 future droughts.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Correction and calibration of atmospheric impact observations in GOES GLM data

The Earth's atmosphere is impacted daily by both meteoroids and artificial objects. Calibrated observations of the emitted light at sufficiently high sampling rates can enable or improve the estimation of impactor attributes such as size, cohesion, trajectory, and composition, but are difficult to obtain owing to the unpredictability, brevity, and high dynamic (brightness) range of impacts. Ground-based camera systems have successfully monitored small regions of the atmosphere at video frame rates and with limited radiometric capabilities, but most impacts occur over the 70% of the Earth's surface covered by water and are therefore missed by these networks. The Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) instruments aboard Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites 16 and 17 provide near-hemispherical coverage at 500 frames per second. These data have been shown to contain the signatures of many independently confirmed impacts, often from both viewing angles simultaneously, and constitute an observational resource that is currently unparalleled in the public domain. NASA's Asteroid Threat Assessment Project has implemented an automated impact detection pipeline that processes data from GLM daily. Given a detected impact, the GLM data contain a wealth of information for use in quantitative follow-up analyses. However, impact events differ from lightning in ways that violate key assumptions built into GLM's design. The result is that GLM's onboard processing introduces errors into pixel observations of impact events and the calibrated energies near the periphery of the detector may be substantially overestimated. We present methods for mitigating these and other issues to produce a data product more suitable for impact analyses than the existing GLM lightning product.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Atmospheric waves and global seismoacoustic observations of the January 2022 Hunga eruption, Tonga

The 15 January 2022 climactic eruption of Hunga volcano, Tonga, produced an explosion in the atmosphere of a size that has not been documented in the modern geophysical record. The event generated a broad range of atmospheric waves observed globally by various ground-based and spaceborne instrumentation networks. Most prominent was the surface-guided Lamb wave (≲0.01 hertz), which we observed propagating for four (plus three antipodal) passages around Earth over 6 days. As measured by the Lamb wave amplitudes, the climactic Hunga explosion was comparable in size to that of the 1883 Krakatau eruption. The Hunga eruption produced remarkable globally detected infrasound (0.01 to 20 hertz), long-range (~10,000 kilometers) audible sound, and ionospheric perturbations. Seismometers worldwide recorded pure seismic and air-to-ground coupled waves. Air-to-sea coupling likely contributed to fast-arriving tsunamis. In this article, we highlight exceptional observations of the atmospheric waves.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Nucleosynthesis and observation of the heaviest elements

Abstract The rapid neutron capture or ‘ r process’ of nucleosynthesis is believed to be responsible for the production of approximately half the natural abundance of heavy elements found on the periodic table above iron (with proton number $$Z=26$$ Z = 26 ) and all of the heavy elements above bismuth ( $$Z=83$$ Z = 83 ). In the course of creating the actinides and potentially superheavies, the r process must necessarily synthesize superheavy nuclei (those with extreme proton numbers, neutron numbers or both) far from isotopes accessible in the laboratory. Many questions about this process remain unanswered, such as ‘where in nature may this process occur?’ and ‘what are the heaviest species created by this process?’ In this review, we survey at a high level the nuclear properties relevant for the heaviest elements thought to be created in the r process. We provide a synopsis of the production and destruction mechanisms of these heavy species, in particular the actinides and superheavies, and discuss these heavy elements in relation to the astrophysical r process. We review the observational evidence of actinides found in the Solar system and in metal-poor stars and comment on the prospective of observing heavy-element production in explosive astrophysical events. Finally, we discuss the possibility that future observations and laboratory experiments will provide new information in understanding the production of the heaviest elements.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2026

The nucleardatapy toolkit for simple access to experimental nuclear data, astrophysical observations, and theoretical predictions

Systematic comparisons across theoretical predictions for the properties of dense matter, nuclear physics data, and astrophysical observations (also called meta-analyses) are performed. Existing predictions for symmetric nuclear and neutron matter properties are considered, and they are shown in this paper as an illustration of the present knowledge. Asymmetric matter is constructed assuming the isospin asymmetry quadratic approximation. It is employed to predict the pressure at twice saturation energy-density based only on nuclear-physics constraints, and we find it compatible with the one from the gravitational-wave community. To make our meta-analysis transparent, updated in the future, and to publicly share our results, the Python toolkit nucleardatapy is described and released here. Hence, this paper accompanies nucleardatapy, which simplifies access to nuclear-physics data, including theoretical calculations, experimental measurements, and astrophysical observations. This Python toolkit is designed to easily provide data for: (i) predictions for uniform matter (from microscopic or phenomenological approaches); (ii) correlation among nuclear properties induced by experimental and theoretical constraints; (iii) measurements for finite nuclei (nuclear chart, charge radii, neutron skins or nuclear incompressibilities, etc.) and hypernuclei (single particle energies); and (iv) astrophysical observations. This toolkit provides data in a unified format for easy comparison and provides new meta-analysis tools. It will be continuously developed, and we expect contributions from the community in our endeavor.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Observation of electroweak production of two jets in association with an isolated photon and missing transverse momentum, and search for a Higgs boson decaying into invisible particles at 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a measurement of the electroweak production of two jets in association with a Zγ pair, with the Z boson decaying into two neutrinos. It also presents a search for invisible or partially invisible decays of a Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV produced through vector-boson fusion with a photon in the final state. These results use data from LHC proton–proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb -1 . The event signature, shared by all benchmark processes considered for the measurements and searches, is characterized by a significant amount of unbalanced transverse momentum and a photon in the final state, in addition to a pair of forward jets. Electroweak $Zγ$ production in association with two jets is observed in this final state with a significance of 5.2 (5.1 expected) standard deviations. The measured fiducial cross-section for this process is 1.31 ± 0.29 fb. An observed (expected) upper limit of 0.37 (0.34$^{+0.15}_{-0.10}$) at 95% confidence level is set on the branching ratio of a 125 GeV Higgs boson to invisible particles, assuming the Standard Model production cross-section. The signature is also interpreted in the context of decays of a Higgs boson into a photon and a dark photon. An observed (expected) 95% CL upper limit on the branching ratio for this decay is set at 0.018 (0.017$^{+0.007}_{-0.005}$), assuming the Standard Model production cross-section for a 125 GeV Higgs boson.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Observation of seasonal variations of the flux of high-energy atmospheric neutrinos with IceCube

Atmospheric muon neutrinos are produced by meson decays in cosmic-ray-induced air showers. The flux depends on meteorological quantities such as the air temperature, which affects the density of air. Competition between decay and re-interaction of those mesons in the first particle production generations gives rise to a higher neutrino flux when the air density in the stratosphere is lower, corresponding to a higher temperature. A measurement of a temperature dependence of the atmospheric νμ flux provides a novel method for constraining hadronic interaction models of air showers. It is particularly sensitive to the production of kaons. Studying this temperature dependence for the first time requires a large sample of high-energy neutrinos as well as a detailed understanding of atmospheric properties. We report the significant (> 10 σ) observation of a correlation between the rate of more than 260,000 neutrinos, detected by IceCube between 2012 and 2018, and atmospheric tem peratures of the stratosphere, measured by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard NASA’s AQUA satellite. For the observed 10% seasonal change of effective atmospheric temperature we measure a 3.5(3)% change in the muon neutrino flux. This observed correlation deviates by about 2-3 standard deviations from the expected correla tion of 4.3% as obtained from theoretical predictions under the assumption of various hadronic interaction models.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Designing observables for measurements with deep learning

Many analyses in particle and nuclear physics use simulations to infer fundamental, effective, or phenomenological parameters of the underlying physics models. When the inference is performed with unfolded cross sections, the observables are designed using physics intuition and heuristics. We propose to design targeted observables with machine learning. Unfolded, differential cross sections in a neural network output contain the most information about parameters of interest and can be well-measured by construction. The networks are trained using a custom loss function that rewards outputs that are sensitive to the parameter(s) of interest while simultaneously penalizing outputs that are different between particle-level and detector-level (to minimize detector distortions). We demonstrate this idea in simulation using two physics models for inclusive measurements in deep inelastic scattering. We find that the new approach is more sensitive than classical observables at distinguishing the two models and also has a reduced unfolding uncertainty due to the reduced detector distortions.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗